


Everyman.

by Basingstoke



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Bisexuality, Character of Color, First Time, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-01
Updated: 2007-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts on a beach and ends in a city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyman.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Melina

Jack fell in love for the first time when he looked up from a martini and saw an alien dancing with a human girl in a spaceship like no other he'd ever seen, and he realized they had come to rescue him, and he realized he was forgiven, and he realized he would do anything for them. He thought that meant killing for the Doctor, but it didn't, because the Doctor couldn't stand death. Not the death of a butterfly; not the death of his enemy. He'd been all for killing Daleks, when Jack first knew him, but Jack wondered if he would push the metaphorical button now.

The Doctor was sitting on a rock, his head down, his back to the pyre. Jack and Martha stood by the Tardis.

It was cold; they were too far from the pyre to feel it, not that Jack would want to anyway. He'd been dead too many times to willingly go near a grave. So he stood and shivered as the wind cut through his holey shirt.

Martha hugged him, sharing her warmth. "You reek," she said into his shoulder. He had to smile.

"I think my nose burned out after the first month." He smelled fire and salt, nothing else. Not himself, not her. He was very sorry for that.

"I could smell you as soon as you came in the room. Horrible." She leaned into him and held him tighter. "Did you wash at all?"

"I was chained up in the boiler room. They hosed me down sometimes."

"I missed you. I don't even know you, but I wanted you there. I should have taken you with me."

Jack pressed his lips to the top of her head and left them there. "I like your family. Your sister--"

"My sister?" She looked up at him. "Did you flirt with my sister?"

"Never."

"Liar."

Jack grinned. Martha punched his chest then hugged him tighter. "Thank you for looking after my family."

"They looked after me," Jack said.

The Doctor stood up sharply. He strode over to them nearly at a run. "Right!" he called out. "Off we go!" He was backlit by the pyre, so Jack couldn't see his face.

"I want to go to the beach," Jack said.

"We're on a beach." The Doctor walked into the Tardis door. "Let's go to Stonehenge!"

Jack took Martha's hand. "Beach," he said.

"Beach. With tropical drinks," Martha said.

"Nude bathing," Jack said.

"Coconut oil," Martha said.

"Sushi," Jack said.

The Doctor stared at them both. "Are you ganging up on me?"

"I can fly the Tardis," Jack said. "She likes me."

"Piece of cake. I've nearly learned to read Time Lord writing," Martha said.

"Brazil. Or Hawaii," Jack said. "No, Brazil."

"I've never been to Brazil. I want to go to Brazil," Martha said.

The Doctor's eyes widened as he looked between them. "Right. Right. Brazil it is." He shook his head, pulling levers on the console. "Think you'd never seen the end of the world before..."

"Yes, actually, I haven't!" Martha said.

Jack shut the front door. "Wish I could say the same. I spent a week dead after the last one. Women weeping over my body, men prostrate with grief..."

"I was not!" the Doctor protested.

"I didn't say it was you! I can have my own apocalypses." Jack looked down at Martha. "I beat a demon from the depths of hell."

"Did not." She punched him again.

"Did so. Ianto read apocalyptic verse about it, and I killed it by looking at it."

"Who's Ianto?"

"My secretary." He waggled his eyebrows--oh, but then it hit him, Ianto's soft lips, the memory of his hands, his thighs around Jack's waist--it had been a year for him without any kisses at all, and Ianto was the last one he'd touched.

"Your secretary."

"My secretary."

"How long before you shagged him?"

"Yes, we're in Brazil now, if we can leave Jack's pants for a moment!" the Doctor shouted.

"Year and a half," Jack said. Then they pushed the door open and ran out onto the Brazilian beach.

Jack tore off his shirts as he ran. There was blood on him, sweat, grease from the engines, gunpowder in his skin--but it would scrub away, and his skin would be new, and this year hadn't happened at all, except inside his mind.

He jumped into the ocean face-first, arms spread, splashing salt water in a corona around him. He ended up with sand in his mouth but he didn't care at all.

Martha jumped onto his back and he exhaled the last of his air into the water. She turned him over. "Ocean!" she shouted.

Jack leaned up and kissed her. She kissed back for a split second. "Oh. No, no," she said. "No. Your breath is worse than Shakespeare's. Rinse."

Jack rinsed and spit, rubbing his teeth with sand. "Shakespeare?"

"You would have liked him. And he would have liked you," she said, giving it a naughty spin with the tilt of her eyebrows. She scooped up sand and scrubbed his chest down, taking caked blood and grime with it.

"Was he cute? No, was he charming? That's more important."

"Very. Both. You don't sound surprised, Shakespeare and all. I usually get more of a reaction," Martha said.

"He took Rose to the end of the Earth. He took me to Raxacoricofallapitorious to foster out a baby Slitheen. So he took you to meet Shakespeare. He can't resist, haven't you noticed?" Jack grinned.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my voyages through time and space are *so* passe. I forgot, you're so impressive," she said, and pushed his head underwater.

But not for very long, and when he came back up, she was kneeling up and taking her trousers off. "You know me better than you think," Jack said, admiring her colorful panties.

"Fruity drinks," the Doctor announced. He sat down in the surf beside them, feet bare, trousers rolled up, not that it mattered when his butt hit the water. There was a tray on his lap with tall blue glasses on it. "Here. Little umbrellas and all."

"But," Martha said, "there's nobody. Where did you get those?"

"I do have a blender. And a fridge. The Tardis goes on for miles, you've seen! I think we have a beach in there as well, but you humans and your natural features."

Jack scooted out from beneath Martha and took a drink. There was, as advertised, an umbrella in it, stuck into a big floating nookberry. Jack fished out the berry and ate it. He set the cellophane umbrella shade-down onto the surf.

Back and forth, back and forth it washed, but every wave took it a few inches further out to sea. The southern Atlantic, the currents--it could fetch up on the coast of Africa. No reason it couldn't, apart from probability, but Jack always believed in beating the odds.

"I have three more regenerations, I think," the Doctor said. "Next time I'm going to try to be ginger."

"Be female," Jack said.

"Hush!"

"What's wrong with being female?" Martha asked. She leaned against Jack's and the Doctor's knees and nibbled the bright green nookberry.

"Nothing! It's just not done," the Doctor said.

"I've always wanted to try being female. I knew a place that could do it temporarily, but I didn't have the time. Hold this for me," Jack said, handing his drink back to the Doctor. He stood up, stripped off the rest of his clothes, and threw them as far as he could into the waves. He threw himself in after them.

He exhaled and sank, looking up at the sun. He could see the waves ripple over his face, dark and light distortion, bubbles and tiny creatures. He rubbed his face and body with sand until his skin stung and his lungs burned, and then he kicked back up to the surface.

"I can't remember if I had anything in my pockets, actually. Hope I didn't," he said as he waded back to the others.

"Your coat is still in the Tardis--or in the Tardis again--I'm confused. Poor thing, do you suppose she remembers being gutted?" Martha asked the Doctor. The Doctor just looked at her.

"Hey," Jack said to Martha. He took the drink out of her hand and put it back on the Doctor's tray; then he pushed her back into the waves and kissed her hard, and there was only the taste of salt.

The spikes of her hair thrust into the water for some time before they melted into fuzzy mats. She was wearing a tight T-shirt and a cotton bra and she grabbed his ass when he popped the fastener.

"Excuse me," the Doctor said.

Jack didn't turn his head away from Martha's beautiful face. "Been way too long since I kissed anyone. I want to kiss until my lips go numb." Martha grinned, and he kissed her again.

Jack felt the Doctor's hand under his chin and the Doctor pulled his face away. He opened his mouth to object and the Doctor kissed him, with tongue, tasting of exotic fruit.

"I missed you so much it hurt," Jack said. The Doctor didn't answer. His eyes were terribly sad.

"You amazing creature, look at what you did," the Doctor said to Martha. Then he kissed her too. "Look at that sky and that water and those trees. All of those. And the fish, think of all those fish."

"Right. Lovely. But Jack was going to shag me, and I want to get back to that, thanks. It's been a really awful year." Martha writhed underneath Jack, working her T-shirt up her body.

"I put a blanket down on the beach," the Doctor said.

Martha looked from the Doctor to Jack. At once, they scrambled to their feet. Martha peeled her shirt up over her head as she splashed up out of the water. Jack looked at the Doctor. "She wants you to love her," Jack said.

"I do, I think."

"Show it."

"I do, don't I?"

Jack shook his head, but the Doctor was really confused, he realized; and it wasn't as if he could explain the progression of love to kissing, touching, *making love.*

"Jack!" He looked toward the beach and found Martha standing there, naked and impatient.

"In your own time," Jack said, and ran toward Martha.

They were briny and sandy and there was grit in sensitive places, which hurt like the dickens. Didn't matter. He wrapped his hands around Martha's strong thighs and slipped his tongue inside Martha as far as it would go and was completely content.

There was movement beside him. The Doctor sat down cross-legged; he still had the tray with the drinks, absurdly, and he placed it to one side.

Martha pulled one of Jack's hands up to her breast. She was thin and tight and stressed, and so was he, but they moved together like they had been doing it for years, like they had known each other for more than a couple of days before the world ended.

He replaced his tongue with two fingers and she came, just like that. Jack crawled up her body and kissed her as she panted and shook, and she tucked her thigh between his, offering him lovely skin to press against.

"Is that how you do it, then? Secrets of the great lovers?"

Jack glared at the Doctor. "If you're going to comment, you have to help. Give me a hand."

Martha giggled and grabbed the Doctor's hand, bringing it to Jack's cock.

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor said, but he grasped Jack gently and let him thrust against his palm. Jack kissed Martha and closed his eyes.

"This is how we do it when we don't have any condoms," Martha laughed. "Don't you look nice, Jack." Jack kissed her again. There were two sets of hands on him and that was all he wanted; gentle hands, people he loved.

His body didn't show the bullets and burns and blades that had pierced him. Time didn't show it either--they taught that in the Time Academy. "When time is repaired, one must behave as if the continuous timeline has always been true. If you can maintain this fiction, it will become true for you."

He'd had such a crush on that teacher.

Afterwards, he lounged beside Martha, staring up at the sky. She held his hand on her stomach and slowly rubbed his palm. The Doctor still sat beside them, eyes drifting up and down their bodies.

"For a long time," Jack said, "I wondered if I was still human. But then our tests got good enough and I found out I was."

"I can't imagine living forever," Martha said.

"Me neither," Jack said.

"Or me," the Doctor said softly.

"I'm catching up to you. I have two hundred years already, and you, you're only nine hundred years old. When I'm older than you I want a cake," Jack said.

Martha pinched the ball of his thumb. "Stop it. Time travel makes my head hurt."

"Ow."

"When you're nine hundred years old, I'll bring you a cake," the Doctor said.

"I promise to be glad to see you," Jack said, and he smiled. He napped on the beach with Martha, who woke up with sunburn on her breasts, which Jack healed with a kiss, which led to more sex.

Later, he went home to his people, because he missed them. He loved them, too.

In 2480, the Tardis appeared in his office. The Doctor--still wide-eyed and brown-haired, not yet ginger--poked his head out and said, "Hi! How old are you?"

"813," Jack replied. "Hop forward a little."

He still lived in the Hub. It had become quite homey, and anyway, he liked the idea of controlling the world from an underground lair. Very James Bond, and an appealing contrast to the Master. He had a front door. Tourists still came in sometimes. The Doctor still landed on the Rift to recharge. He released his coral into the ocean, though; he didn't want to be a Time Lord any more. He did not build a Tardis of his own.

In 2542, when he was exactly nine hundred years old, the Tardis blew his papers around the room again. The Doctor cracked the door and peeked through. "Right this time?"

Jack checked his watch. "Give or take a week, yes."

"Cheers! Look who I brought!" And Martha was behind him, holding a cake, young and lovely again--well, not that she'd ever stopped being lovely, but at the age of 125, the last time he'd seen her, she wasn't as sprightly as she used to be.

"Don't tell me anything that's happened! It's only been six months since I saw you last," Martha said. She set the cake on his desk and kissed him. "And you have crow's feet."

"They're distinguished," Jack said.

Hassan and Giniel and Mikah flung open his door, pistols raised. "Jack! The alarms--oh, it's just--wait, that's not the Doctor," Giniel said. They frowned at the Doctor uncomfortably.

"Sure it is. Who else travels around in a police box?" Jack said.

"Did you regenerate again?" Mikah asked.

The Doctor pointed at Jack's team. "Does everyone know me in this century?"

"You pop in all the time. Of course, you look a little different," Jack said.

"Oh do I! Tell!"

Jack pressed one finger to his lips and shooed his team off with the other hand. "Mind, he looks *good* like this," Mikah said.

"Honestly," Giniel sniffed. She pulled the others out of the office.

"Somehow your team is exactly the same," Martha said, rolling her eyes.

"Magda is different. Half Weevil. Face like an angry Siamese, but she's an excellent field agent." Jack grinned.

Martha scowled at him. "Jack."

"I like cats," Jack said.

"You pervert!"

"Er, what? Did I miss something?" The Doctor had a cake knife in his hand the size of a small sword. "I didn't bring any candles. Should I have candles?"

"Nine hundred candles would be a fire hazard," Martha said.

Jack produced his lighter, an old-fashioned Zippo. He flicked it open. "Many happy returns of the day," he said, and blew it out.

The Doctor cut the cake.

Later, Magda dropped by, and he fed her cake (chocolate with raspberry filling, delicious) with his fingers. When they met she'd tried to kill him; he shot her, then revived her with a kiss, and now she was part of the team.

Much later, 150 years or so later, the Tardis popped into the corner of the office, and the Doctor poked his head out. "Happy nine hundredth?" he asked.

"Hundred and fifty years that way." Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "But you can stay for a minute, if you want."

"Can't! The cake will spoil. Back in a flash!" the Doctor said, and that was the last time Jack saw him for about two millennia.

Later, much later, about a billion years later, when Torchwood was obsolete and Jack was starting to feel his age, he hooked his ship to the Tardis and took tea with the Doctor (blond, jolly, around 1700 years old) on the edge of a black hole. "Do you think I fall in love too easily?" he asked the Doctor. He'd been considering the question for little while, a millennium or so.

"I think you fall in love very easily indeed, and that's exactly the right amount," the Doctor said. "I pushed the mother of the Family of Blood into this black hole. Do you think it was wrong of me?"

"No," Jack said, but later he pulled her out. She cried in his arms for hours. He made her leave the stolen body (sent her to another dimension with the other incorporeal beings) and buried it on a moon.

Later, Jack was president of New Mars, and learned how to fall in love with an entire planet at once.

Much later, he learned how to use his life energy to reverse entropy. If he could tap into the psychic network, as the Doctor had done so very long before, he could feed the swirling brightness inside him back into the people around him. It was like making love... it was connection to pure life, and he'd always craved it, and he could do it. That he had to reshape his body a little was nothing compared to that.

After that, a very long time after that, he saw the Doctor again, and then he saw Rose again, and he felt his life come full circle, because they were the first people he loved just because he wanted to. Not his parents--he remembered his parents--he spent a lot of time in memory these years, and sometimes forgot to speak for a few months, and for some reason there was a religion that sprung up around him--

He watched the sun consume the Earth, his ancestral home, and felt himself grow older. He had to see this, of course. Later, he released his smoke, and breathed life back into two small blue-skinned people and a tree. It was easy, once you got the hang of it. He had so much life to give.

Last of all... the last thing he learned was to read the tides of history, and that brought him to New New York, where things were wrong... and he saw the Doctor again. A small man, when he had seemed so large. Perspective? Or actually, his eyes were bigger now. He breathed life into the hospital, and people lived.

At the very last, at the end... his end... and it was not an end for the humans of this world, therefore not an end at all... the Doctor once said he was a fact, but the Doctor was a very young creature and his facts were often wrong. He felt the Doctor's hand on his face and remembered the kiss where he learned how to be brave. He could live forever... he could live past this point... he could live until the end of time... but he breathed life into the dead planet, and that was it, that was all his life, and he smiled.

The end.


End file.
